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South-South Cooperation and Western aid: learning from and with each other? By By Axel Berger and Dr. Sven Grimm, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) Bonn, 6 September 2010. Besides the Western donors, newly industrializing countries are also - and increasingly so – active in development policy. These new donors, such as for example China, India, Brazil or South Africa are appearing on the stage at a time when the Western donor community is working hard to live up to its commitment in the developing world.

After the military – development policy? Questions to be asked of realistic development cooperation with Afghanistan and other fragile states By Dr. Jörn Grävingholt, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 16 August 2010. The recent International Conference on Afghanistan in Kabul reaffirmed the plan to begin "handing over responsibility for security" to Afghan forces in 2011. The conditions for that to happen first need to be put in place, though, namely sufficient public security and a state apparatus that contributes constructively to establishing that security. It is doubtful whether that will be possible.

Two Cheers for Kenya’s New Constitution By Prof. Stephen Brown, PhD, University of Ottawa. Bonn, Ottawa 9 August 2010. Hundreds of millions of people in some 20 African countries are going to the polls this year. One of the most nervously anticipated votes took place last Wednesday, when Kenyans approved a new constitution in a referendum by a two-to-one margin. The adoption of the new constitution is a remarkable achievement for both the modernisation it brings to Kenya’s basic law and the democratic process by which it was approved.

Desertec or the Mediterranean Solar Plan – whose sun is shining brighter? By Matthias Ruchser, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 2 August 2010. The anniversaries of two events that could be extremely important for future energy supplies in Europe and the Middle East and North Africa region fell on 13 July 2010: The establishment of the Union for the Mediterranean and its Mediterranean Solar Plan in 2008, and the founding of the Desertec Industry Initiative in 2009. Most people will have heard of Desertec, the initiative to construct large scale solar power plants in northern Africa. Not so the Mediterranean Solar Plan, which at the moment is known only to insiders. Why is that, given that both initiatives are so ambitious and pursuing similar objectives?

Change is possible after all – The reform of the United Nations By Silke Weinlich, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 26 July 2010. In early July 2010 the United Nations created a new Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women: UN WOMEN. It also adopted important resolutions aimed at improving the UN organisations' development cooperation. The first you've heard of it? That is a shame because these achievements show that the organisation is capable of instituting reform and that multilateral action among 192 countries remains possible.

Yet another Inconvenient Truth By Dr. Jürgen Wiemann, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and former Deputy Director of the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 19 July 2010. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a timely reminder of an inconvenient truth – the world’s oil reserves are limited and will eventually run out. In Germany, no front-bench politician has mentioned the taboo term Peak Oil since the explosion of the BP oil platform – after all, it is not our oil that is pouring out into the Gulf!

The Millennium Development Goals call for more realism and stronger demanders in developing countries By Dr Markus Loewe, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) Bonn, 12 July 2010. This year sees the tenth anniversary of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were essentially derived from the Millennium Declaration adopted by the United Nations in 2000. According to the Declaration, key improvements are to be made in a total of eight development policy areas by 2015.

Revising “Cotonou” – nothing new under the sun? By Dr. Sven Grimm and Davina Makhan, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 5 July 2010. Many eyes were on the G8/G20 last week. A few days earlier, representatives from over half of the world’s countries met in Ouagadougou to sign the revised Cotonou Partnership Agreement. Despite the weight of their numbers, that gathering has gone relatively unnoticed beyond the specialists’ circle, to say the least.

After the Toronto Summit: The G20's development policy agenda By Dr. Peter Wolff, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 29 June 2010. It is a G8 tradition that as well as dealing with global economic issues summit meetings also dabble in a little development policy. Over the past few years African heads of state were regularly invited to breakfast one morning; at the instigation of the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the focus in Gleneagles in 2005 was aid for developing countries, and in launching the Heiligendamm Process at the 2007 G8 Summit Chancellor Angela Merkel focused attention not only on the emerging economies but also on Africa.

World Cup 2010: Why the South Africans should get the Cup By Christian von Drachenfels, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 21 June 2010. Admittedly, the South African national team’s chances of winning the World Cup were limited from the start. However, the South Africans will also be jubilant after the final. The football-crazy population is infectious with euphoria and vitality. All of this lets the country shine in a positive light – an effect that was intended.

Dry Matter? – International biodiversity and climate policies overlook the potential of drylands By Steffen Bauer, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE), Philipp Buß and Levke Sörensen, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH. Bonn, 12 June 2010. The earth’s drylands remain a fringe issue of international environmental and development politics. The World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, which is celebrated annually since the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has been adopted, will hardly change this.

The G8 and G20 Summits at the end of June 2010 in Canada: learning from the disadvantages of the G8 By Jennifer Gronau, Collaborative Research Center 597 “Transformations of the State”, University of Bremen Bonn 7 June 2010. From 25 to 27 June, the G8 and G20 summits will take place in Canada. Their motto “Recovery and New Beginnings” concentrates on the reconstruction of the international financial architecture. What began for the G8 with an oil crisis in 1975 is now ending with the financial crisis: it has been replaced in the eyes of the public by the G20, which has evolved into the most important forum for dealing with the crisis. This is reason enough to ask how well the G20 is performing if measured by the usual criteria of legitimation.

The European External Action Service’s Role in EU Development Policymaking: Safeguards Required By Dr. Mark Furness, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) Bonn, 31 May 2010. The Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, requires that EU foreign policy does no harm to development objectives, while calling for development cooperation to be conducted within the broader framework of external action. The Treaty entrenches development policy as a ”shared competence” under the mandate of both High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy (CSFP) Catherine Ashton and Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

The UN Commission on Sustainable Development – Another irrelevant UN process? By Dr. Miquel Muñoz Cabré, Boston University's Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-range Future and Bernd Sommer, Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI). Bonn, New York City 25 May 2010. The 18th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) met in early May. You did not hear of this? Not surprising, since there was no media interest on this meeting. Only a handful of persons, who deal with development or environmental issues professionally, are familiar with the CSD and its proceedings. Therefore, what is the Commission on Sustainable Development? What did it do in those two weeks? Why has it not been featured in the media? And where is the CSD going?

Crisis in the Eurozone … and what is means for developing countries By Dr. Peter Wolff, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 17 May 2010. The fear that developing countries would be severely affected by the financial crisis has not materialized to the extent expected. But now comes what has frequently been the case in the history of financial crises: after the crisis of the markets comes the crisis of public budgets. This second wave of the crisis will also have structural impacts on the world economy and thus also on the developing countries, which will not be so significant in the short-term, but definitely in the long-term.

International Day for Biological Diversity – not a day for celebration By Dr. Carmen Richerzhagen, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 17 May 2010. The United Nations celebrates 22 May of each year as the International Day for Biological Diversity. In addition, the United Nations has declared the year 2010 as International Year of Biodiversity. The international community had set itself the goals to curb the loss of biodiversity by 2010. And yet it has failed.

Time for European Unity in Development By Dr. Erik Lundsgaarde and Davina Makhan, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 10 May 2010. On 9 May 1950, the French foreign minister Robert Schuman delivered a speech commemorated as the founding moment of European unification. The idea of a European development policy was born at the same time. Schuman emphasised the positive consequences that a more unified Europe could have for the rest of the world.

Is the 0.7% target in development cooperation still relevant? By Dr. Peter Wolff, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 3 May 2010. It came as no surprise: the recently published figures on development assistance of the OECD countries show that the commitments from the time before the financial crisis cannot be maintained. At the G8 Summit in Gleneagles in the summer of 2005, the most important industrial nations had made far-reaching promises.

Shanghai Expo 2010: Metropolis reloaded? By Dr. Doris Fischer, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 26 April 2010. On 1 May, the Expo 2010 will start in Shanghai, moving the city into the international limelight just as the Olympics did with Beijing in 2008. This will highlight the fact that Shanghai has become an international metropolis of the rank of New York, Paris, London and Tokyo. There is an building in the old Shanghai that still has the quality of a landmark since it clearly differed from the colonial-style buildings of the Bund and the prevalent socialist-realist architecture of that time. And, surprisingly, the building immediately recalled images of the 1927 film ”Metropolis” by Fritz Lang.

And now another zero hour. Reconstruction and recovery in Haiti By Julia Leininger, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 12 April 2010. “We’re starting out at zero.” This we heard virtually everywhere in the media in the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Every disaster offers an opportunity, and Haiti’s chance, the “zero hour” that struck there in January 2010, is now supposed to lead to a new social and economic start for Haiti. However, in Haitian society there is widespread and unconcealed scepticism concerning any such new start. For the big “zero hour,” with its untold possibilities, has been promised time and again in the history of this Caribbean island state.

Back to Copenhagen: What does citizen’s engagement mean for climate protection as long as there is no global climate agreement? By Dr. Jürgen Wiemann, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and former Deputy Director of the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). In his last Column (“What needs to be done post Copenhagen? Is it now the citizens who are called on to stop climate change?”) of 25 January 2010, the author, citing a recommendation of the German Federal Minister for the Environment, namely that it would be “no sacrifice (for citizens) to buy food produced regionally instead of food that needs to be transported over long distances,” pointed out that regional products are not necessarily more climate-friendly than products imported from abroad. The author now poses the far more fundamental question whether efforts to save fossil energies in Germany and Europe may be assumed to have any impact whatever on world climate.

New actors, old problems: implications of Chinese and Brazilian engagement in Angola By Christine Hackenesch, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) and Sarah-Lea John de Sousa. Bonn, 29 March 2010. Global changes are felt at country level. The necessity to enlarge the G-8 to a G-20 while trying to address the global economic and financial crisis illustrated clearly the increasingly important position of emerging powers in the global economy.

The United Nations, National Sovereignty and the “Responsibility to Protect” By Edward Mortimer, Salzburg Global Seminar and Axel Berger, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, Salzburg 22 March 2010. The challenge of global governance is the tension between spreading global norms and an international system, whose roots date back to the Westphalian peace. The question arises to what extent international organisations are able and willing to interfere in the sovereign sphere of nation states to enforce universally agreed principles? The most obvious case in this respect is the role of the UN Security Council and in particular the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine.

The microfinance crisis By Dr. Peter Wolff, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 15 March 2010. Microfinance has in recent years evolved into a popular instrument of poverty reduction. Microcredits may offer even the poorest of people a chance to escape absolute poverty. However, the image of microfinance, often shaped by a certain social romanticism, has developed cracks in recent years. What has happened?

Development with or without women? By Dr. Imme Scholz, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, March 8, 2010. Fifteen years after the World Conference on Women in Beijing, the statement, there can be no durable development successes without the active participation of women, has become a core component of development policy. Why?

The Barroso II Commission: one small step for European development policy By Dr. Mark Furness and Davina Makhan, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 1 March 2010. The approval of the second EU-Commission of José Manuel Barroso by the European Parliament on 9 February 2010 should prove a defining moment for European development policy. The Lisbon Treaty changes the institutional setting for the external relations of the European Union and while intra-EU horse-trading over policy responsibilities and budgets is ongoing, it is likely that development will play a more prominent role.

Think tanks calling for a new beginning in European development policy By Dr. Sven Grimm, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) and Simon Maxwell, Overseas Development Institute (ODI). Bonn, 22 February 2010. The European Union has a number of new faces in its Commission, a European Parliament whose hand has been strengthened by the Treaty of Lisbon, and a promise by the member states to improve the coordination of European foreign policy in its various facets. With the new EU Commission in the process of constitution, the “European Think-Tanks Group” has presented its EU-Memorandum entitled “New Challenges, New Beginnings”.

US development policy: A strong player back on the map By Dr. Peter Wolff, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 1 February 2010. Under the Bush administration development policy was not an especially important issue – although the US development budget did increase in the period, and not only on account of Afghanistan and Iraq. Aid for Africa also rose appreciably, not least with a view to counteracting public perceptions of the US as the world’s dominant military power. The PEPFAR AIDS-relief initiative and the Millennium Challenge Account were development initiatives advanced by US development policy in this period - each with a decidedly national accent and neither coordinated in any particular way with other donors. In this period USAID had largely vanished from the map.

What needs to be done post Copenhagen? Is it now the citizens who are called on to stop climate change? By Dr. Jürgen Wiemann, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and former Deputy Director of the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 25 January 2010. The expectation expressed in the column before Christmas that a success of the Copenhagen climate summit could well spill over to other international negotiations, perhaps even inspiring the negotiators at the WTO finally to bring the long-overdue World Trade Round to a successful conclusion, has proved elusive (see: The Current Column of 14 December 2009, From Geneva to Copenhagen – What does the World Trade Conference Have to Do with the World Climate Conference?).

Values and law – Development policy needs to take a stand in the debate on basic rights, integration, and religion By Dr. Christian von Haldenwang, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 18 January 2010. The present discussion on values centres on attitudes toward Islam, but that, in most cases, ultimately proves to be little more than code. In fact, issue is, in essence, how we deal, at home, but also in our relations with other countries, with other values, cultures, and notions of law; what avenues are open to us, in the long term, to gain recognition for the values that we regard as fundamental to an open and just society.

Is the earth still governable? ... and what that implies for development policy By Prof. Dr. Dirk Messner, German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE). Bonn, 11 January 2010. In 1994 the Israeli political scientist Yehezkel Dror presented a farsighted report to the Club of Rome. The report, entitled “Capacity to Govern” (German: “Ist die Erde noch regierbar?”], argues that in the future the only way to guarantee prosperity and sustainable development in the world’s nation-states will be for mankind to govern the ‘earth as a whole.’ Fifteen years ago this was a bold thought.